worker rights

This pandemic-year Thanksgiving, think hard about the system that has workers on the job today

Every Thanksgiving, people across the United States gather with their family and friends to celebrate and eat and be with their loved ones. And at the same time, people across the United States are at work—maybe having rescheduled their holiday meal around their work and maybe having given up the celebration entirely.  Well, this year is …

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Labor Secretary Scalia Wrongly Rejects Federal Role in Enforcing Unemployment Rights of Workers Who Refuse Unsafe Work

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the structural challenges that have plagued the nation’s unemployment insurance (UI) system for decades. Reduced federal funding starved the program of the resources needed to upgrade its antiquated IT infrastructure, causing state systems to slow to a crawl and crash amid the unprecedented volume of claims over the last …

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Mnuchin Is Now Trying to Destroy Airline Workers’ Job Protections

America’s aviation workers won a huge victory in the CARES Act. In the bill, Congress created a grants program that funds paychecks and benefits for two million hourly workers who were going to lose their jobs while planes are grounded. This isn’t a no-strings-attached corporate bailout for airlines. The money goes directly to flight attendants, …

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We Rise: Building Immigrant Working People Power

A year ago the president announced a series of executive actions on immigration. Today is a fitting time to honor those who compelled him to act. Around the country, courageous working people demanded an end to the deportation regime that was tearing communities, families and workplaces apart. They shut down detention centers, turned around buses, and …

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Big Wins For The People Who Clean Our Homes And Care For Our Children

Last week, domestic workers — those who care for children and clean inside people’s homes — won two surprise victories securing more rights in Connecticut and Oregon. Oregon has considered a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights for many years, but then last week it gained traction. “At the last minute, this bill suddenly got the …

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Eleanor Roosevelt Fought for Human Rights and Union Rights

Today is International Human Rights Day, which commemorates the day in 1948 the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One of the prime movers behind the declaration was Eleanor Roosevelt. As Mary Jo Binker and Brigid O’Farrell write on the History News Network that was just one piece of her long post-White House, progressive—and …

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FLOC Takes Fight for U.S. Tobacco Workers’ Rights to England

Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) President Baldemar Velasquez will be in London, England, on Wednesday to urge British American Tobacco (BAT) to use its influence as a 42% stakeholder in Reynolds American Inc. (and a major customer) to persuade the company to respect and protect the human and workers’ rights of its migrant tobacco farm …

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Madeline Messa

Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.